At a farmhouse a number of our men were gathered for a temporary rest, and there I learned that the colonel of the 8th Battalion and a large number of officers and men had been killed that morning. The battalion had to charge down the hill in the face of heavy machine-gun fire. Some tanks were standing by the farm and one of the officers offered to take me with him in the machine, but as it was to go into the 2nd Divisional area I had to decline the invitation and follow up our men on foot. I passed a number of German wounded. One of them, a young lad, was terribly alarmed when he saw me approaching, thinking I was going to murder him. He held up his hands and shouted, "Kamarad!" I think the Germans had heard wild stories of the ferocity of Canadians. The boy then began to implore me to send him to an ambulance. He was wounded in the leg, and had bound up his wounds very neatly and skilfully. I tried to make him understand that the stretcher-bearers would come up in time, and I stuck his rifle in the ground with his helmet on the top of it, as a signal to the bearer party.
Before me at the end of the road, I saw amid trees the village of Warvillers. Many men were going towards it from all directions; and I saw our artillery brigades taking up battery positions to the left. I met two men of the 5th Battalion and we started off to the village together. The place was now in our hands, as the Germans had evacuated it some hours before. The houses were quite intact and offered prospects of pleasant billets. My companions and I, finding it was quite late in the afternoon, determined to go and have our meal in a garden near the Château. We sat down on the grass and opened our bully-beef tins, and seeing onions growing in the garden thought it would be a good thing to have that savoury vegetable as a relish. It added to the enjoyment of our simple meal to think that we were eating something which the Germans had intended for themselves. We managed to get some fresh water too from a well nearby, which looked quite clean. On the other side of a wall we could see the roof of the Château. One of the men thought he would like to go and explore and find out who was there. He came back a few minutes afterwards and said it was full of Germans. So, taking their rifles, the two men went off to attack it, thinking they had found a stronghold of the enemy. I was just having a smoke after my meal when the lads came back and said that the Germans whom they had seen were our prisoners and that the Château had been taken over by us as a dressing station. We made our way to it and found that it was a very beautiful place situated in lovely grounds. A card on a door upstairs bore the inscription, "His Excellency General," and then followed a German name. The place had been the headquarters of some enemy corps or division on the previous day. At the back of the Château was a very strong concrete dugout divided off into rooms, which were soon filled by our officers and men. All that night the wounded were being brought to the Château, and German prisoners also found their way there. Nobody was paying much attention to the latter, and, thinking it was unwise to let them wander about, and perhaps go back to their lines with information about our location, with the permission of the C.O. of the ambulance, who was up to his eyes in work, I had them all put into one large room over which I placed a guard. They were sent back to the corps cage in the morning. The Germans evidently expected that we would use the Château because they dropped some heavy shells in the garden during the night, and we had to get the wounded down in to the cellars in quick time.
I had about three hours sleep that night, and in the morning I determined to follow up our men of the 1st Brigade who had now established themselves at a village ahead of us called Rouvroy. As I was starting off, a signaller came up to me and told me he had captured a stray horse with a saddle on it and that he would lend it to me to take me to my destination. I mounted the animal and went down the avenue in great pride and comfort, but after I got into the road a man came up and stopped me and told me, to my horror, that I was riding his horse which he had lost the night before. It requires great strength of mind and self-mastery to give up a mount to a pedestrian when you are once in the saddle. But the war had not entirely extinguished the light of conscience in my soul, so, tired as I was, I dismounted and gave up the steed. But as I saw the man ride back to the Château I began to wonder within myself whether he was the real owner or not. One thief does not like to be out-witted by another. However, there was nothing to do now but to go straight ahead. The road before me led directly to Rouvroy. Some German planes were hovering overhead, and in the fields to my left our artillery were going into action. As shells were dropping on the road I took a short cut over the fields. Here I found some of our machine-gunners, and the body of a poor fellow who had just been killed. I got to the village of Rouvroy about noon and made my way to a dugout under the main road, where the colonel and some of the officers of the 3rd Battalion were having lunch. They gave me a cup of tea, but I told them I had taken my food on the journey, so did not want anything to eat. They looked much relieved at this, because rations were short. Their chaplain was there and gave me a warm reception. I was feeling rather used up, so lay down on a wire mattress and had an hour's sleep. When lunch was over the chaplain and I went to see the sights of the town. The ruined church was being used for a dressing station and it seemed to me it was rather a dangerous place, as the Germans would be likely to shell it. We found an old bookshop which was filled with German literature and writing paper, some of which proved very useful.
We had a good rest in a dugout, but I felt so seedy that I told him, if he heard that I had gone out of the line, not to think it was because I was suffering from "cold feet". We went back to the village, and there we found shells dropping in the main street not far from the church. In fact, one came so close that we had to dive into a cellar and wait till the "straffing" was over. Then I bid my companion good-bye and started off over the fields back to Warvillers. By this time I felt so unwell that it was hard to resist the temptation to crawl into some little hole in which I might die quietly. However, with my usual luck, I found a motor car waiting near the road for an air-officer who had gone off on a tour of inspection and was expected to return soon. The driver said I could get in and rest. When the officer came back he kindly consented to give me a ride to my Divisional Headquarters. We did not know where they were and I landed in the wrong place, but finally with the assistance of another car I made my way to Beaufort. There I found our Division had established themselves in huts and dugouts at the back of an ancient château. With great difficulty I made my way over to General Thacker's mess and asked for some dinner.
During the meal, the General sent off his A.D.C. on a message, and he soon returned with no less a person than the A.D.M.S., who, to my dismay, proceeded to feel my pulse and put a clinical thermometer in my mouth. My temperature being 103-1/2, he ordered me at once to go off to a rest camp, under threat of all sorts of penalties if I did not. I lay on the floor of his office till three in the morning, when an ambulance arrived and took me off to some place in a field, where they were collecting casualties. From thence I was despatched to the large asylum at Amiens which was operated by an Imperial C.C.S. The major who examined me ordered me to go to the Base by the next train, as they had no time to attend to cases of influenza. For a while I was left on the stretcher in a ward among wounded heroes. I felt myself out of place, but could do nothing to mend matters. Two sisters came over to me, and apparently took great interest in me till one of them looked at the tag which was pinned on my shoulder. With a look of disgust she turned and said to her companion, "He isn't wounded at all, he has only got the 'flu'". At once they lost all interest in me, and went off leaving me to my fate. Stung by this humiliation, I called two orderlies and asked them to carry me out into the garden and hide me under the bushes. This they did, and there I found many friends who had been wounded lying about the place. My batman had come with me and had brought my kit, so a box of good cigars which I handed round was most acceptable to the poor chaps who were waiting to be sent off. By a stroke of good luck, an accident on the railway prevented my being evacuated that evening. I knew that if they once got me down to the Base my war days would be over.
On the following morning, feeling better, I got up, shaved, put on my best tunic, and, with a cigar in my mouth, wandered into the reception room, where I found the major who had ordered me off on the previous day. Puffing the smoke in front of my face to conceal my paleness, I asked him when he was going to send me down to the Base. He looked a little surprised at finding me recovered, and then said, "Well, Padré, I think I will let you go back to your lines after all." It was a great relief to me. The chaplain of the hospital very kindly took me in charge and allowed me to spend the night in his room. The next day I got a ride in a Canadian ambulance and made my way back to Beaufort. There, to my horror, I found that the Division, thinking they had got rid of me for good, had appointed another padré in my place. Through the glass door of my room, I could see him giving instructions to the chaplain of the artillery. I felt like Enoch Arden, but I had not Enoch's unselfishness so, throwing the door wide open, I strode into the room, and to the ill-concealed consternation of both my friends who had looked upon me in a military sense as dead, informed them that I had come back to take over my duties. Of course, everyone said they were glad to see me, except General Thacker, who remarked dryly that my return had upset all the cherished plans of well-ordered minds. The A.D.M.S. had told them that he had thought I was in for an attack of pneumonia. It was really a very amusing situation, but I was determined to avoid the Base, especially now that we felt the great and glorious end of our long campaign was coming nearer every day.
CHAPTER XXXI.
We Return to Arras.
August, 1918.
On Friday the 16th of August our Division left Beaufort and moved back to billets at Le Quesnel. Here there was a good sized château which was at once used for office purposes. The General and his staff made their billets in a deep cave which was entered from the road. It was of considerable extent, lit by electric light, and rooms opened out on both sides of the central passage. I had one assigned to me, but as I did not feel well enough to stand the dampness I gave it to the clerks of the A.D.M.S., and made my home with the veterinary officer in the cellar of the school-house which stood beside the church. The latter, which had been used by the Germans as a C.C.S., was a modern building and of good proportions. The spire had been used as an observation-post. One or two shells had hit the building and the interior, though still intact, was in great disorder. The altar ornaments, vestments, and prayer books were thrown about in confusion. The school-house where I was lodged must have been also the Curé's residence. A good-sized room downstairs served as a chapel for my Sunday services. The cellar, where the A.D.V.S. and I slept was quite comfortable, though by no means shell-proof. As the only alternative abode was the cave, he and I, deciding we would rather die of a shell than of rheumatism, chose the cellar. The Corps ambulances were all together in a valley not far away, and in trenches to the east, near the cemetery where the 8th Battalion officers and men had been buried, there were some reserves of the 3rd Brigade.
Things were quiet now in the front line, so I determined to make a trip to Albert to see my son's grave. It was a long and dusty journey and the roads were rough. We passed back through the district over which we had advanced, and saw everywhere gruesome traces of the fighting. When we came to Albert, however, we found it was still in the possession of the enemy. The Americans were holding the line, and an American sentry stopped us at a barrier in the road and said that no motorcycles were allowed to go any further in that direction. It was strange to hear the American accent again, and I told the lad that we were Canadians. "Well", he said, with a drawl, "that's good enough for me." We shook hands and had a short talk about the peaceful continent that lay across the ocean. There was nothing for us to do then but to return.